title: Axon position within the corpus callosum determines contralateral cortical projection.
abstract: How developing axons in the corpus callosum (CC) achieve their homotopic projection to the contralateral cortex remains unclear. We found that axonal position within the CC plays a critical role in this projection. Labeling of nearby callosal axons in mice showed that callosal axons were segregated in an orderly fashion, with those from more medial cerebral cortex located more dorsally and subsequently projecting to more medial contralateral cortical regions. The normal axonal order within the CC was grossly disturbed when semaphorin3A/neuropilin-1 signaling was disrupted. However, the order in which axons were positioned within the CC still determined their contralateral projection, causing a severe disruption of the homotopic contralateral projection that persisted at postnatal day 30, when the normal developmental refinement of contralateral projections is completed in wild-type (WT) mice. Thus, the orderly positioning of axons within the CC is a primary determinant of how homotopic interhemispheric projections form in the contralateral cortex.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroscience, State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031, China.
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.forename: Yunqing
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wen
authors.forename: Liang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: She
authors.forename: Ya-Nan
authors.initials: YN
authors.lastname: Sui
authors.forename: Lu
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Linda J
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Richards
authors.forename: Mu-Ming
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Poo
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001369:Axons / Q000502:physiology*; D006690:Bisbenzimidazole; D003337:Corpus Callosum / Q000166:cytology / Q000196:embryology*; D018274:Electroporation; D017403:In Situ Hybridization; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D008856:Microscopy, Fluorescence; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000196:embryology*; D039942:Neuropilin-1 / Q000378:metabolism*; D040121:Semaphorin-3A / Q000378:metabolism*; D015398:Signal Transduction / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D040121:Semaphorin-3A; D039942:Neuropilin-1; D006690:Bisbenzimidazole
keywords: axon development; axon fiber order; cortical axon guidance; cortical development